Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday January 03, 2011 @01:04AM
from the silent-spring dept.

Dan East writes "In a fashion worthy of a King or Hitchcock novel, blackbirds began to fall from the sky dead in Arkansas yesterday. Somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 birds rained down on the small town of Beeb, Arkansas, with no visible trauma. Officials are making wild guesses as to what happened — lightning strike, high-altitude hail, or perhaps trauma from the sound of New Year's fireworks killed them."

If everyone stopped eating meat today, they would have to immediately slaughter billions of cows, chickens, pigs, sheep etc. as the market as every day keeping them alive would be just sinking money for nothing. Nice short-term outcome, is that what you want? Then rather than saving these animals, the majority would cease to exist, as one of the main reasons we keep them is for their meat. It would also cause the price of products like dairy to skyrocket, it may even become totally uneconomical, in which case rather than saving these animals, you may just drive them extinct. These animals are domesticated, it's not going to be like a Disney movie where they are all freed into the wild to survive happy and free on their own, they don't have survival skills - we keep them alive. The trade is really that they get to exist at all, and we get to eat them.

I'm all for non-cruel livestock raising methods but ceasing to eat meat is completely illogical, it doesn't do anything to solve that problem at all, in fact it may exacerbate it, since by stressing the market for meat products you directly put pressure on farmers to cut corners price-wise. There are better ways to solve that problem; lobbying for regulation and enforcement, raise public awareness, and selective boycotting - e.g. name and shame the worst farms. These methods have done huge amounts to help improve farming conditions for animals.

... in which case rather than saving these animals, you may just drive them extinct. These animals are domesticated, it's not going to be like a Disney movie where they are all freed into the wild to survive happy and free on their own, they don't have survival skills - we keep them alive. The trade is really that they get to exist at all, and we get to eat them.

I cannot believe this nonsense gets voted up to 5. Cows and chickens extinct because we stop eating them? Have you never heard of eggs and milk? Why does some peoples personal choice not to eat meat get you so angry? As for exacerbating the market by eating less meat forcing farmers to cut corners? Actually the stress put on farmers currently which forces them already to cut so many corners is supermarket domination forcing them to sell their product for the barest survivable profit. The centre of you

That also goes for your gods, your software licenses, your sexual proclivities, and everything else you really think I need to do because you like it so much.

Is it really evangelising when your replying to an over-rated and factually incorrect rant? Or did you just glance at it without reading, take what I said out of context and slap on a ready baked crowd pleaser quote that could have been straight from any random day time talk show.

I cannot believe this nonsense gets voted up to 5. Cows and chickens extinct because we stop eating them? Have you never heard of eggs and milk?

Did you even read my post? Apparently I have heard of milk, because in my post I specifically mentioned dairy (????). Did you know that "milk" is a form of "dairy"? Apparently not. Anyway, if you read my post, and think about it, if we are keeping cattle ONLY for dairy, as opposed to now for dairy and meat and leather (we'd have to stop leather as the same cruelty of slaughtering arguments apply), then the number of uses of cattle is dramatically diminished, which means that in order for dairy farming to re

If everyone stopped eating meat today, they would have to immediately slaughter billions of cows, chickens, pigs, sheep etc. as the market as every day keeping them alive would be just sinking money for nothing. Nice short-term outcome, is that what you want?

Ok, either you are a very successful troll, or a very stupid person. I really can't tell... and I'm good at this.

Anyway, if you are a troll, congratulations, you've done an amazing job today. puddi, puddi, puddi.

Now, if you aren't... What the hell are you talking about? Giving cows a chance? Are you fucking stupid?

Look, there is NO GOD, there is just nature. And by the mere fact that we are here, I can tell you for sure 2 things: There's been some fucking and some eating going on here for a LONG TIME. That's something that I never understood. That's an animals life: You are born, you grow and survive as long as you can, try to reproduce, and then die. Most of the time, you get eaten. It's very rare to see in nature animals that die of old age. It just doesn't happen that much outside of humans and human's pets. Long before any animal can die of old age, it becomes older and slower, and gets eaten. Why is it wrong or unnatural for us to just do the same? Do you have any idea of how many animals have lived and died since life evolved on earth?

But nobody said it better than old good George. I was going to redact this piece a little, but I can't do that to this awesome piece, so here it is, in whole:

"'My God has a bigger dick than your God!' That's how it is, isn't it? Thousands of years, and all the best wars too, the bloodiest, most brutal wars fought all based on religious hatred, which is fine with me. Anytime a bunch of holy people want to kill each other, I'm a happy guy. But don't be giving me all this shit about the sanctity of life. I mean, even if there were such a thing, I don't think it's something you can blame on God. No, you know where the sanctity of life came from? We made it up! You know why? Cause we're alive! Self-interest. Living people have a strong interest in promoting the idea that somehow life is sacred. You don't see Abbott and Costello running around, talking about this shit, do you? We're not hearing a whole lot from Mussolini on the subject. What's the latest from JFK? Not a god damned thing, cause JFK, Mussolini, and Abbott and Costello are fucking dead. They're fucking dead, and dead people give less than a shit about the sanctity of life. Only living people care about it, so the whole thing grows out of a completely biased point of view. It's a self-serving, man-made bullshit story. It's one of these things we tell ourselves so we'll feel noble. Life is sacred, makes you feel noble.

Well let me ask you this, if everything that ever lived is dead, and everything alive is going to die, where does the sacred part come in? I'm having trouble with that. Because even with the stuff we preach about the sanctity of life, we don't practice it. Look at what we kill. Mosquitos and flies, because they're pests! Lions and tigers, because it's fun! Chickens and pigs, because we're hungry. Pheasants and quail, because it's fun, and we're hungry. And people! We kill people, because they're pests... and it's fun!

And you might have noticed something else, the sanctity of life doesn't seem to apply to cancer cells, does it? You never see a bumpersticker that says 'save the tumors' or 'I brake for advanced melanoma.' No, viruses, mold, mildew, maggots, fungus, weeds, e. coli bacteria, the crabs, nothing sacred about those things. So at best, the sanctity of life is kind of a selective thing. We get to choose which forms of life we feel are sacred, and we get to kill the rest. Pretty neat deal, huh? You know how we got it? We made the whole fucking thing up! Made it up, the same way we made up the death penalty. We made them both up, the sanctity of life and the death penalty. Aren't we versatile?".

Learn something from that magnificent old fuck. Eat a stake tonight, stop trying so hard to be holier than thou.

I think you missed the GP's point. Plenty of atheists/agnostics are vegetarians/vegans. You don't have to believe in God or the supernatural to believe that unnecessary suffering, to humans or animals, is wrong.

"But animals eat other animals, so it's natural!"

If eating meat is natural because animals do it (and if something that's "natural" is also "good"), then rape, incest, and shitting in the same river that you drink from would be just as tolerable. However, our highly evolved brains allow us to circumvent Nature's cruel impulses with reason and empathy. We can use science to figure out that shitting in the river is a great way to spread disease, and we can use empathy to understand that raping your co-worker after the Christmas party wouldn't be quite as fun for the co-worker as it would be for you.

Nature, "red in tooth and claw", is both cruel and amoral. However, there is no reason why we have to be like Nature.

To paraphrase Richard Dawkins: our genes gave us our brains, but our brains have the power to subvert the will of our genes.

"Why care about chickens and pigs when we don't give a shit about mosquitos, fungi, and cancer cells?"

While I adore George Carlin, I think he's slightly off the mark here. We care about chickens, pigs, cows, dolphins, etc. because they are mammals and birds. They possess complex nervous systems that can sense pain, adapt to their surroundings, and protect their kin. Most can learn, socialize, and even dream. In other words, they're a lot like us.

If I cut the limb off a tree, I know it won't scream. It doesn't feel pain, because it's not equipped with an apparatus to sense pain. Why should it? Pain is a response to external threats, designed by evolution to rescue a creature from something that could destroy it. Pain teaches me not to touch the hot stove again, and the simple idea of pain is powerful enough to make me flee from hungry wolves, even if they haven't nipped me yet. A tree has already prepared its defenses: a thick coat of armor against predators, and waxy, water-resistant leaves for storms. If a tree is in danger, it can't fight or run away. It just sits there. A tree that could sense pain would be the product of cruel and wasteful design, indeed.

Do mosquitos and flesh-eating bacteria sense pain? I don't know, but I'd guess they experience some limited form. Even so, I do know that, as parasites, they are quite a nuisance. The amount of suffering/pain/disease they inflict on more complex life forms far outweighs the amount of suffering I might inflict by killing them.

Keep in mind, death != suffering. The Humane Society puts stray dogs and cats to sleep because letting them run free or starve is more hazardous and painful than allowing them a peaceful release.

--

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble, so I'll be quick with my final point: the GP asked to limit your meat consumption gradually because it is impractical and uneconomical for society to stop all at once. Buy meat from animals that have had their suffering reduced to minimal levels. Only you can create the demand for such products, because you have the choice. Eventually, forgoing all meat would make the vegetarian groups happy, but they are willing to compromise with reduced levels.

One day the technology may exist for us to "grow" our own meat without a brain or nervous system that has to sense pain and suffer. We might design our meat without gristle and bone, concentrating on the most tender and delicious cuts. It might even be cheaper than growing real meat the old-fashioned way. At that point, many will finally consider it unequivocally immoral to kill animals for food (barring famine). Much like how we see slavery today, they will look back at our ancestors and ask how an entire civilization could exist that engaged in the wholesale slaughter of innocent life, pumped through factory farms and made to sleep in its own filth at night.

And I’d have a hard time killing and dissecting that hunk of meat because (if you believe evolution) it took away my claws and fangs around the same time it gave me the brain I needed to fashion tools such as knives and utensils to take their place. Personally I’m okay with that trade-off.

As someone who occasionally agists horses - I often get owners coming and asking if I can "help" catch their horses - in 20 acre paddocks!. Horses think idiots "chasing" them are a great game... but seriously, as someone has spent time on stations where you can walk for week without seeing a fence - there is no land animal humans can't outdistance, or (potentially) outsmart. Motorbikes, quads, and helicopters is what you use to rounds up mobs of cattle - not single animals! You don't have to run - just walk

You have essentially made the “might makes right” argument. If you want to argue: we should kill because we can kill, then I hope you are prepared to defend yourself against those who would want for your life and property. Lucky for you, modern civilization protects both.

Modern civilization protects no one from other humans (except maybe humans from other countries). It punishes misbehavior when caught. Very few people in danger are protected. Modern civilization does protect us from dangers like predators, prey animals (deer and moose seem to think we're predators and respond by fighting), temperature extremes.

Lastly, humans, like other primates, are herbivores. Only complete dolts suggest we need meat three times daily, or even once weekly (let alone milk, which is intended for infants). Where are our claws? Fangs? You have no built-in mechanisms with which to hunt, kill, render, or even digest the animals you intend to eat without modern tools (which came very late in our evolution).

Built in mechanism: Our legs. Ever beat an opponent in a sport by just out-lasting him? Didn't it feel exhilarating? Before we could use rocks tied to sticks

I'd go further and state that most of the obese people around you (including myself) got that way from eating processed grains and sugars - bread and soda, namely.

I'd lose a shit-ton of weight if I moved to a primarily meat diet.

Also, men are not herbivores. We are omnivores. We don't need fangs and claws because we are tool-users. My claws are rifles and my fangs are a stove. 100 generations ago, my ancestors' claws were spears and their fangs were a cooking fire.

Maybe the animals as you say are happy to make the trade-off but until we're sure and give each one the choice we shouldn't assume

I am reminded of the cow in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I was thinking about this recently and it occurred to me that at least animals can offer some resistance (it might be futile but they could resist). All those poor carrots though... and lettuce. Will no one think of the lettuce? It can't even try to run away. All of you awful vegans destroying millions of poor beans and rice plants just because you can't handle meat./end humor

Most of us need proteins, also at least one amino acid is from eating meat afair. And for all you veggies out there, yes I'm very well aware that you can achieve the same protein through vegetables and you can take nutrition supplement to get the amino acid, but frankly I'd rather have some damned animal suffer for my pleasure than to hurt my self for their well being.

People following a vegetarian diet must eat protein foods that have complementary proteins so that the essential amino acids missing from one protein food can be supplied by another.What are some examples of complementary proteins?

If you're eating meat, you should question how your bowels look and smell, how much meat is stuck inside there undigested and foul.

That's a completely bogus and unscientific statement. Our digestive systems evolved over millions of years for us to be omnivores, not herbivores.

My bowels have also evolved over the last several million years to not NEED bowel cleansing; that's what salmonella does (and hint: you need that flora in your gut, if you get the runs or an enema, eat yogurt or cottage cheese to get

Wot, in bed at a hospital with its loved ones present and offering false encouragement while calculating inheritance? Or in car crashes?

The natural ways for prey animals to die are from starvation, being caught and butchered by predators, or by disease. I personally prefer that we use unnatural and inhumane methods, like shooting a spike into their brains.

"Billions" would be at least 14% of the earth and really at least 25% since we have almost 7 billion people as of yet on this planet.

Most people who try veganism get horribly sick and wind up being pescapalian (they eat fish) or they only eat chicken. Almost every vegetarian I know eats things like chicken ceaser salad/wrap/whatever because they need the meat; they won't touch red meat. Me, I can't go without meat for a week without my immune system failing; after a few days I lose my ability to heal (seriously, not only don't wounds heal, but the skin will start to deteriorate and form sores of its own accord).

The fact remains that spiders kill bugs, eagles tear animals apart while they're alive, etc. World isn't a happy place with Obama riding a flying unicorn with a rainbow coming out of its ass.

There are hundreds of millions of people on the Indian subcontinent alone who eat no meat - none whatsoever - from the moment they are born until the moment they die some 80 years later. They do not get horribly sick. They do not "wind up" eating fish or chicken. They live healthy, balanced, and lengthy lives.

You probably share more genes with alot of Indians and Africans than with your unrelated neighbour.

All facts and statistics are always abused to suit our own prejudices and preconceptions, even when not intended to, especially then.

If you can't eat vegetarian, you have probably not had the correct vegetarian meal. Many who "go veggie" have absolutely no clue what kinds of food you must eat.

Also, you must take the time for the body to clean itself out. You may feel sick for days, weeks or even months, and then you'll be fine. Drinking alot of water between meals etc helps.

Educate yourself instead. If you personally can't stand it after having tried the real thing, that's fine. Personally, I would have had a hard time if not for friends who went veggie with me over a period of a few years. With friends however, it was fun and empowering. I know not everyone is so lucky.

It seems to me a bit intellectualish to try it yourself for a short time, with no friends and no support. Like learning martial arts from a book. It's not the real thing. If you want an informed opinion about it, you should of course interview a trusted practitioner instead of building your own houses of cards.

I was raised as lacto-ovo vegetarian, became a meat eater in my 20's, but now prefer vegetarian food over meat. I eat some meat once in a while, but if I eat much of it I begin to feel pretty poorly. I have something similar to rhuematoid arthritis in my spine, and if I eat much meat(chicken or beef), more than a couple of times a month, my pain levels skyrocket.

For anyone unacquainted a vegetarian diet to just jump into it with little or no knowledge of all things related to a vegetarian die

So, we'll keep a couple of pigs and cows in zoo pens to be gawked at, and the remainder will die off because they can't effectively survive in the wild because we've bred them for thousands of years to be large, tasty, and easy to kill?

Also, as a side note, you don't see something inherently unnatural about a diet that requires you to take nutritional supplements just to be in something resembling normal health?

As hilarious as it sounds, it's true. I love me some pork, and I do go buy ribs from the store or whatever. But I've had wild boar ribs and they are a whole other thing, it might as well be another kind of animal. That's why all you well-exercised vegetarians and vegans are fucked when civilization collapses; we know you're delicious. Oh sure, if you take a city dweller and raise them on beer and frequent massages they're going to be tasty as well, but they just won't have the same kind of muscle structure, or the same depth of flavor that game meat has. And of all the game meat, the tastiest and least gamey is the boar... or the free-range vegan.

Seriously. Look, Fuck the whales. They had their chance at life, they had a nice evolution plan, and it was working very well, but they'd forgotten to take something into account: Japan. If you have tentacles, or you are huge and unique, or if you have Shitting Dick-Nipples, you have to watch the fuck out, 'cause Japan is coming for you. The Dodo was ugly as fuck and tasted like crap... and it went, well, the way of the dodo. You don't care about Siberian Tigers either.

Now, even if you care about endangered species, you care up to a point. That is, unless you are a crazy-ass peta member or something, you limit yourself to sending a donation, or going to a stupid sit-down somewhere. Now, you tell us that FUCKING COWS are going extinct, and there's going to be chaos on the streets. People will fucking murder politicians and feed them to the cows. They'll offer virgin sacrifices and pray to Thor until they can guarantee that they'll keep getting their fair share of beef.

So, yeah, being delicious with us humans around seems like an awesome idea.

Doubt that, turns out the same day 100,000 Drum Fish [cnn.com] died the same day. Only Drum fish not any of the other fish that are in the same waters. Unless of course the tornado selectively took only black birds and only drum fish up into the air....

I would also point out to support your theory we had an unseasonably warm period followed by a rapid cold snap with a large drop in pressure and there were several quick flash storms with heavy lightning close to the area where the birds annually nest, and the path of the storms would have taken it right over where they found the drum. Also as is tradition several large fireworks were shot off for New years. Talking to someone from the area this afternoon they figured the fireworks scared the birds who took

I live close to the area where the Drum Fish were found (Fort Smith) and these two events seem to be rare coincidences and nothing more. Weather definitely isn't on the list as the recent tornado, also relatively close by by car, occurred a half a week ago. Unless the tornado (which occurred no where near the Arkansas river) swept up some diseased Drum fish, threw them in the river 50 40 miles away, which spread the disease to the other fish, that the birds ate and died of food poisoning while in mid-flight, weather is not likely to be the cause. We're in a cold front now with no real warm air around, and we normally don't see snow until February, so lightning, hail and other precipitation can be ruled out too.

This past week has just been wonky for Arkansas. Our weather is on the fritz and can't decide to be warm or cold yet. We've got a crap load of dead fish along an already smelly river bank that other states dump in, and now the left over dead birds from Angry Birds are being dumped here too. What sucks about the whole thing is that media outlets, with nothing better to do but create conspiracy theories, will be broadcasting the most redneck, hick, uneducated person they can find to provide a take as to what they "think" is happening to represent the entire state and populous, instead of sticking to scientific conclusions.

Also, in the same area, is the town that's had like 500 earthquakes in the past six months or something.
A lot of people think that the hydraulic fracturing method of gas drilling caused the earthquakes. Maybe it also caused some gasses to vent.
Not to mention the New Madrid Fault is in the area where they're doing that shit... they're probably going to kill me.

Except that during the series they found there had been earlier tests that had killed just the birds, before the global flash forward. Not that I'd try applying logic to that series, the time flash is one thing but basic things like a any form of wave that acts exactly the same at ground zero as it does halfway around the earth? The science was at a Doctor Who level, just with less comedy and more thriller.

In a fashion worthy of a King or Hitchcock novel, blackbirds began to fall from the sky dead

Ooh! Ooh! I read that one! It's Stephen King's Under the Dome [wikipedia.org].
(Quick summary: Some kind of force field is dropped over the town of Chester's Mill, Maine. Lord of the Flies-type microcosm ensues. Good book, I recommend it.)

It was a decent King book, good characters, some interesting mishaps (Suspension of disbelief, but it's a king book). But then the ending was a WTF moment. It was like King had no idea where to end it so he pulled something like BSG did to end their series. Had no idea where it was going so just wrapped it up quick. He made this big deal throughout the book about the dome hitting exactly on the border of the town, a border that is a manmade construct on a map, but then well... he never went anywhere with T

Is it just some cosmic coincidence that when the U.S. didn't have any contrails nine years ago, people across the world were gripped with strong emotion, either cheering or sad? Contrails are psychic pacifiers, man. When the settings sun hits them and makes them all orange and pink against a blue backdrop, it messes with your junk, makes you less manly. Ray-bans nullify the effect due to polarized crystal prism power in the lenses.

through being trapped in storm-associated updrafts. These can rapidly reach high altitudes and cold temperatures (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/594363/thunderstorm/49573/Updrafts-and-downdrafts).

Oh don't say something like that without proof. Just the fact that such a wild guess was even thrown about is more than enough reason for the animal welfare dickheads to want to ban fireworks outright.

How about poison? Leave out some bird feed but contaminate it with something which will kill them over the next few hours. Many poisons intended for pests are designed to work slowly so the carcass isn't found right beside the poison.

Given the fanciful explanations being put forward, I thought I'd add these possibilities which are just as likely:

- Blackbird mob war (explains the trauma too!)....Variation: A new super race of pigeon decided to whack the competition

- Suicide protest over the abandonment of puppies and kittens over Christmas

- Someone below was constipated for a week after eating some curry and after going off to die on his own in the wilderness managed to pass wind just in time to prevent death from toxic shock. Unfortunately the birds copped the brunt of it.

- Terrorist Blackbird not caught at the Blackbird airport in time because those pesky Blackbirds loved their freedom too much and refused to be irradiated and groped before they travel

- Y2K11 didn't just hit iPads and iPhones. Those poor Blackbirds shouldn't have bought their pacemakers from Apple and believed the "It just works" hype

- An alien witch temporarily transformed them from Blackbirds into Lemmings. When they hit the ground they changed back

Repent, the end is nigh, Elton John and his husband had a child on Christmas day and women dress without modesty in Liechtenstein, therefore we are all DOOOOOOOMED. Especially the fish and the birds in Arkansas, who were all gay and very keen on felching.

Not that I really expect any sort of editorial checking from Slashdot anymore, but the name of the town is Beebee. I should know, I grew up just south of there, and I was in the area over Christmas visiting my family. We left the day before this happened. There were strong thunderstorms the day we left, so that might have been the cause.

My friend descended from a Siberian tribe. His grandmother died in Siberia because she happened to go out wearing just two or three layers less than you "should". See, it's cold enough over there in my friend's ancestral village that the windows are plastic. Glass would shatter. And despite this, sometimes you want convenience. Like if you're American and you want to get milk, you're tempted to use the SUV to drive two blocks away and save five minutes of walking. Well, she saved five minutes changing out of two or three layers of clothing and suffered from it, due to a tragic weather event. OVer there, the Siberians get these tiny tornadoes that only last a few seconds. They're invisible. But inside of them, the temperature isn't just eighteen below zero, it's like thirty-eight below zero. And the wind is reintroducing that temperature of air at a rate of sometimes around a hundred miles an hour, but confined in a very tight vortex of only three or four feet across due to the nature of convecting currents and their abilities to maintain micro systems, something not very well understood. Being in that tiny cold whirlwind for even a few seconds can cause really horrible physical traumas. She was struck dead by hypothermia by an invisible weather phenomenon, struck dead by a tornado as big around as her sucking down temperatures from the upper atmosphere that were cold enough to lower her core temperature down below dead in only seconds. This sort of thing is a reality, and we can assume that there is plenty under the sun that science doesn't quite comprehend. If this doesn't turn out to be a low-pressure or mega-updraft incident of some kind, then I think we can all safely assume it is a pathogenic or local effect. A bacteria or virus. A radioactive or electromagnetic pulse. At any rate it's anomalous and anybody studying it with interest is probably more intelligent than the average scientists who, based largely on risk assessed values of research grant award futures versus college loan payment rates, side squarely with what is pre-established and therefore never learn anything new and fail to ever address the slightest anomaly whether it challenges their worldview or not.

It can't be a pathogen - there's no way that it would kill such a large amount of birds at exactly the same time. Instead it would have acted over hours/days following a normal distribution, and the area of dead birds would be far greater and not fairly evenly spread over a narrow area.

While my medical degree makes me an expert in humans, not birds, it's reasonable to assume that this bird population is suffering due to 1) the bird overpopulation mentioned by local residents in the news reports and 2) the colder than normal weather. I cannot speculate as to the cause other than ruling out silly things (pathogens, aliens, etc), but I think the birds were on the limit of survival, and some localized event happened that pushed a small group in a certain area a little too hard, causing them to die suddenly.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but a link or some further evidence of micro-tornadoes would surely be in order.

I imagine someone coming across the frozen tundra and the corpse on it could easily reach a similar conclusion, even though the person may have died from some type of sudden onset failure like a brain aneurysm. Having been in northern climates, I'm having a bit of trouble swallowing these invisible micro tornadoes because much of the surface is covered with loose material like powder snow, dust, and exposed dry, decayed vegetation.

GP sounds like a nice troll. Unless you replace air with 1000-fold more dense material it is impossible to cool a person to hypothermia in few seconds, no matter what is temperature and wind speed are. A human can spend comfortably tens of minutes at temperatures well below 200K even naked (or swimsuit) and this is used to heal pains in rheumatoid arthritis.
And as one who lives in north, I can imagine the amount of snow taken air with wind over 30 m/s. Invisible in your dreams.

Mocro-tornadoes are quite real, and relatively common where I live. But, of course, there being dust and sometimes clouds, they are normaly visible. The wind within them comes from slightly hight places, so it is colder than surface (here it means you can get 20C air while the external temperature is near 30C - how the hell can I make the degree symbol appear on a/. post?). I can imagine them being invisible in a cold and dry environment, becoming visible just after they touch the soil.

I experienced something like this on a glacier, a kind of 'dust devil' hit our party, except it wasn't invisible as you say, there was enough fresh powder around to make it clear and we had nowhere to go. It got VERY cold fast and the winds may have been 100kph briefly as well as white-out conditions. I don't know if the wind chill alone made it so cold, but as most of the group had most of our cold weather gear off despite just below freezing temperatures (reflective snow/ice in bright sunlight makes you actually kind hot).. we came pretty damn close to having a serious problem. I would assume that like katabatic winds, such a anti-tornado forming over ice would be powered by descending cold dry air, not ascending warm moist air, and would prefer clearer drier conditions to storm conditions.

This would explain the temperature drop and I imagine anyone or any animal exposed could be in a life threatening situation. I did read that there were tornadoes in the Beebe, Arkansas area on new years eve and this was the leading theory? The blackbirds just got hypothermia, nicely fitting the lack of obvious trauma.

If blackbirds in my part of the world are anything to go by, they don't flock much, at least not in large numbers like other birds. So several thousand blackbirds falling out of the sky in the same area is just strange to me, but blackbirds elsewhere could behave differently?

Let me blow your mind some more. I visited Siberia when the iron curtain was still drawn down. Common people living in Siberia (Irkutsk, Bratsk) were much happier and enjoyed more amenities such as good food and leisure activities than moskovites. If anything, Irkutsk almost felt like a Swiss village. I understand things have changed for the worse since then.

I can't agree with you more. Everybody can see this was caused by Flying Under the Influence, which kills more drunken birds than Dick Cheney with a shotgun. Yes, I say FUI. Their flying licenses ought to be suspended.

The original headline, keeps the reader in suspense until the last word. Your first suggestion is anti-climactic. The Yoda one ( while funny), is too complex of a sentence structure which confuses people too much. You want a little complexity to build the suspense as the original did, but not so much that the reader (average 5th grad level) has to re parse the sentence. They may interpret it as a non native phrasing and associate it with spam.

I've seen it before too, though not on such a large scale, in SW Missouri. In my case it was a flock of mourning dove. Dove are migratory and need a warmer climate. If cold air moves in quickly, like it did in Arkansas over the weekend, the birds can freeze to death quite suddenly. Red winged blackbirds are migratory too. They just cannot take those sudden temperature dips, especially when they are as sharp as those over the weekend.